Since the beginning of December we have had nothing but thunderstorms, cloudy skies and rain so seeing this comet has been a real challenge indeed! But as always perseverance pays off…and I got an image :-) 7th January 2015 The most exciting thing happening in our skies at the moment is this amazing new comet called Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2, which is just entering into the constellation of Eridanus near Lepus. On the evening of the 30th December there was a break in the clouds for about an hour and I just managed to find the comet and capture a few images, but the waxing gibbous Moon made the sky very light so the comets tail was very faint. Hopefully the sky will clear soon so I can capture some more images….

Comet Lovejoy on the 30th December 2014 with its beautiful large green coma, the colour is due to two gases that emanate from the comet: cyanogen (CN) 2 and diatomic carbon (C2), which both glow green when sunlight passes through them.Image taken with a 127mm refractor and a Canon 700d camera, 20 subs and 20 darks frames stacked in DSS, exposure time was just 10 seconds each at ISO 12800 because of the very light sky that was flooded with suburban lights and a bright gibbous Moon.

To find this comet in the coming weeks please go to the Sky and Telescope web site to read all about the comet and download the finder chart, there is also a finder star chart in EH for you to print out.http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/spot-comet-lovejoy-tonight-122920141/From January 7th Comet Lovejoy will pass closest by Earth: at a distance of 0.47 a.u. (44 million miles; 70 million km), but the distance changes only slightly from day to day. During the next two weeks the comet crosses Taurus, Aries, and Triangulum. It passes 8° west-southwest of the Pleiades on the evening of January 17th. (Taken from Sky & Telescope article)